Also using Mac + iPad. I am using iTunes / Music.app and sync manually. I do not subscribe to Apple Music or iTunes Match. I create all playlists inside Music.app (both on desktop and on-the-go) and find they synchronize perfectly across devices. I have about 2000 songs in my collection. One thing to be careful about this scenario is deleting songs. If you do that, your next sync might duplicate playlists that had this song in them. Annoying but I got used to it and I’m not creating many playlists anymore nor am I deleting a lot of songs lately.
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Hey guys,
Take it one step further, Create “smart”playlist in iTunes (music) on your Mac.
Then drag these playlists to the devices. That’s it.
Now, they’re “Smart” playlist.
Example:
Smart playlist with genre is “Rock”…anytime you add a song with genre as “rock” iTunes will automatically added to this playlist to all devices that sync this playlist.
The guys are right. iTunes has its drawbacks, but 90% there and sync 90% faster than years ago.
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Also a heavy user of smart playlists, they are just great like that. This is the big reason why I’m not creating playlists anymore 
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Hey @djjoejoe ,
How do you sort your smart playlists on iTunes for Djay to view as default?
Just figured out after all these years how to sort smart playlists by “Date Added”.
So that new tracks show up on top on Djay with any smart playlist by default.
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My playlists only contain up to 20 songs, 30 in some exceptions. I mostly sort by key to allow for easy key mixing. I have a hierarchy of playlists that goes Decades (ie 90s) > Genres (ie Boom Bap Hip Hop) > Subgenres (ie Boom Bap Chill).
i wouldn’t sync my library accross devices. I would back up my main library like my faves to multiple places like a usb stick, a usb stick at my moms house, google drive, then like have the files on my ipad using finder on mac, then like yeah i would stream apple music as well and maybe some beatport
Sure thing,
Know that if you go playlists, you can choose which playlists go to which device.
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Yeah, Smart Playlists have a lot of flexibility for different people. I use them to get recently added tracks for different gigs. This way I always have an auto-updated list of latest tracks I’ve gathered in one playlist for various needs.
Example is I spin for roller skating groups in addition to dance gigs. Skating tunes tend to be better at slower BPM and have a more relaxed, funky vibe.
In Music app on my laptop, I set one or more tags in the Grouping field within the track Information screen based on what I want to use the track for. Then create a smart playlist based on recent additions to a given Grouping (in this case I use “Sk8” for the chosen songs).
After setting certain tracks to “Sk8” in their Grouping fields, I make a Music app Smart Playlist called "Recent Sk8s) with the following settings:
- Match all
- Date Added in the last 4 months
- Grouping Sk8
- Live updating
Obviously, I can create static playlists for preferred skating tracks (and I do), but these are a bunch for different genres like oldies, R&B/Soul, Electro/Freestyle, and so on that I’ve built over years. There are thousands of tracks and I wouldn’t want to manually walk through all of my static playlists to find new tracks when I’m at a gig.
I use it like a djay Queue playlist but it’s auto-created from my latest finds so I don’t have to manually do it.
Hey @CliffyPop ,
I’m curious here, have you been able to have your smart playlist show up on djay in the order you need them? Example date added
Hm, I don’t think that’s possible with smart playlists. In my date added example, tracks show from most recent to least (as specified in the rules). I can’t then change the order of the results in the smart playlist.
Manual ordering is limited to regular playlists as far as I know. It seems like manual ordering undermines the concept of rules-based selections. But I haven’t experimented to see if it’s possible with other types of rules in smart playlists. It doesn’t work with my date added playlists.
I’ve always had problems sorting by latest.
You should check out this feed.
Not sure if this will work but have you tried sorting your DJAY smart playlists by the Track# option?
I think that might be alphabetical order though…
Hey @rishi ,
I’ve not needed to sort by track #.
Trust me, try it.
Latest songs added will be on top in Djay without sorting in Djay.
IMO this is the biggest dilemma to solve when using DJAY on an iPad.
DJAY is by far the best DJAY software on iOS (IMO) but it is lacking severely in the areas of cross device syncing and library management. Rekordbox (is so annoying in many ways) but has music organisation, tagging and cross device syncing sorted.
I could rant for ages about the challenges but I’ll spare you and just say this…
Whilst you are trying to work out your system to …
- download music to desktop
- organise music on desktop
- transfer music to your iPad
- update and sync playlists between desktop and iPad
… remember that DJAY does this poorly and there is no great solution.
There are work-arounds but to save yourself the headache the simplest thing is just to:
- do everything in the music.app on desktop
- sync to your iPad
- use DJAY to read your music.app playlists
- make limited DJAY (smart) playlists for important things because the filtering and smart actions are really powerful in the DJAY app.
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This is unfortunate. I have grown to hate Rekordbox but still appreciate that for library management, it is amazing. Having multiple panes open and having a sub-pane for things like Related tracks (matched to key and +/- 10% BPM), but only within the current playlist is a lifesaver at times!
What I’d love is to do create playlists on my mac and have them sync across my iOS devices without touching music.app.
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Prep, Tag, Organise and Sync DJAY to multiple devices without involving the music.app is the dream.
Enough with the features DJAY, it’s time to focus on workflow enhancements IMO.
Maybe you’ll see a stack of RB defectors finally come across to DJAY…
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Perhaps someone should post this in the suggestions group.
Hey everyone.
I am so curious is why do so many consider Apple Music (iTunes) to be avoided?
I have found myself trying to create a playlist on an iOS device.
But now a days iTunes just works across all devices
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It’s important to keep mind that Apple Music is designed for consumers first and foremost. It is not designed for DJs. Apple Music does many things that are convenient for the average consumer, but can seriously mess up a carefully curated DJ library.
Some of the things that might happen:
- Track info is “automagically” updated (genre, comments, ratings, album covers etc.)
- Tracks are replaced with a copy using a different sample rate
- Special/custom mixes are replaced with a boring / official version of the song
Despite that - Apple Music is still one of the better options for managing your DJ library, especially in Djay Pro. It is also very convenient if you need to use different DJ software or hardware platforms. Just make sure to turn off all the options that let Apple Music automatically make changes to your library.
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Got it,
Know that I chose not to upload my entire library in the cloud.
My iTunes library is only on my Mac which my iOS devices sync their music to.
My songs are the exact ones I downloaded, no replacement. But choosing not to upload my entire library into the cloud, I cannot create and share playlist with anyone.
But that doesn’t seem to work for anyone anyways, so no loss on my end
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